In 2023, Cranham Primary began a partnership with St Bishop Azariah School in India. In our first year of fundraising, we raised over £750 which enabled us to buy tables and chairs for the children to work at. Now we have raised our target so that we can continue to support the children of this school.

Like us, St Bishop Azariah has around sixty primary-aged pupils, and is set in the countryside. Unlike us, the school is extremely poor and struggles to provide basic equipment for the children to learn. We really hope our fundraising helps to make a difference to these children. In return, we hope to make connections with children from a very different background to us - to learn something about resilience and determination in the face of adversity, as well as to develop an appreciation of the more comfortable lives we lead and the opportunities we have.

The St Bishop Azariah School English Medium Mission School was founded in 2021. It started with 20 pupils and now has 65, a mixture of both boys and girls of primary age. The school is situated in the village of Madripuram in Telangana State, Dornakal. The pupils come from surrounding villages and some live in the hostels. They come from tribal areas and many come from very poor families.

Revd. Samuel Praveen Kumar is the vice principal of the school and is the driving force behind it. The school has been founded to teach poor children and orphans in the area, including tribal children. There are designated 'Scheduled Tribes' in India, who are still seen as Dalits - the lowest caste - and treated with discrimination. They speak their own unscripted language and have their own dress and culture. The school hopes to educate these children as a way of taking them out of poverty and giving them more control over their own futures.

The school is supported by the local church in Madripuram which donates money for the children’s fees (most schools in India are private). There are not enough government schools in the rural areas and some children have no access to a school at all. The school is very basic; until last year, there were no benches or desks or chairs for the children. They had to sit on the floor. Each subject has a government textbook and all the exercises are in this book. There are no internet or digital facilities. The children wear a school uniform – a blue dress and blue/red check shirts and shorts with ties. However, it is quite common for the children to come in their own clothes.

St Bishop Azariah EM School covers a wide area and many pupils come from different villages. They travel there either on foot or motorbike or by auto-rickshaw. It is not the safest transportation so the school has plans to hire a bus to transport pupils in the future.

The St Bishop Azariah English medium school is set in 163 acres of land which Bishop Azariah bought in 1906. He was travelling to Mahabubabad on a horse when he stopped in Madripuram and declared he was going to buy the land which was for sale. His vision was to create schools, a boarding hostel for tribal children and a farm. His aim was to educate the future doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers and raise the living standards for the poor villagers and the Dalits, the tribal people.